Avian genomes collection

The evolutionary relationships between modern bird lineages are contentious and have been debated for many years. In order to address this point, the Avian Genomes consortium has sequenced the genomes of 45 species of bird representing 36 orders. Together with the three previously sequenced genomes, these data have helped us resolve the phylogeny of the class Aves. As well as specific insights into bird biology, the wealth of data generated has allowed researchers to answer more general questions about evolutionary biology. A number of articles arising from this project have been published in Science, including the two flagship articles (DOI:10.1126/science.1251385 and DOI:10.1126/science.1253451). The following articles have been published in BioMed Central journals, including Genome Biology and GigaScience. The data from the project are available from GigaDB.

Determining the evolutionary relationships among the major lineages of extant birds has been one of the biggest challenges in systematic biology. To address this challenge, we assembled or collected the genome...

Giving access to sequence and annotation data for genome assemblies is important because, while facilitating research, it places both assembly and annotation quality under scrutiny, resulting in improvements t...

Birds are one of the most highly successful and diverse groups of vertebrates, having evolved a number of distinct characteristics, including feathers and wings, a sturdy lightweight skeleton and unique respir...

Songbirds (oscine Passeriformes) are among the most diverse and successful vertebrate groups, comprising almost half of all known bird species. Identifying the genomic innovations that might be associated with...

Vertebrate skin appendages are constructed of keratins produced by multigene families. Alpha (α) keratins are found in all vertebrates, while beta (β) keratins are found exclusively in reptiles and birds. We h...

Crocodilians are thought to be hosts to a diverse and divergent complement of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) but a comprehensive investigation is yet to be performed. The recent sequencing of three crocodilian...

Penguins are flightless aquatic birds widely distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The distinctive morphological and physiological features of penguins allow them to live an aquatic life, and some of them ha...

Nearly one-quarter of all avian species is either threatened or nearly threatened. Of these, 73 species are currently being rescued from going extinct in wildlife sanctuaries. One of the previously most critic...

While effective population size (Ne) and life history traits such as generation time are known to impact substitution rates, their potential effects on base composition evolution are less well understood. GC cont...

Mammalian genomes commonly harbor endogenous viral elements. Due to a lack of comparable genome-scale sequence data, far less is known about endogenous viral elements in avian species, even though their small ...

Everyone loves the birds of the world. From their haunting songs and majesty of flight to dazzling plumage and mating rituals, bird watchers – both amateurs and professionals - have marveled for centuries at t...

The evolutionary relationships of modern birds are among the most challenging to understand in systematic biology and have been debated for centuries. To address this challenge, we assembled or collected the g...